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Alko Office Supply in Berkeley, Calif., is leading the fight against pennies by refusing to accept the coin. Cashiers at the store round down to the nearest nickel when accepting cash, losing the company about $500 annually.

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Rising zinc prices have sent the cost of minting pennies skyrocketing to such a degree that it now costs the government 1.6 cents to make each coin. The White House has called for the abolition of the penny and the nickel, but so far Congress has refused to make changes to America's loose change.

A Target store in Muncie, Ind., is providing wipes for shopping carts and hand sanitizers for cashiers in an attempt to keep flu germs from being passed around. Other retailers, including Marsh Supermarket and Meijer, are taking similar measures.

Jason Zweig explains how investors have swarmed high-yield bonds this year, pouring more than $20 billion into the asset class. "The inflow of funds has been phenomenal," said Daniel Fuss, manager of Loomis Sayles Bond Fund. "I have not seen a rally like this, ever, in the high-yield market." However, the rally might be about to end. "As they so often do, investors are piling in even as the party may be starting to wind down," Zweig writes.

Leaders have to balance the amount of time they spend with their teams with the time they devote to interacting with the rest of the organization, writes Gill Corkindale. "Executives usually have a preference for one arena, which can be reinforced by their role, their personality, or even the corporate culture," she writes.

Unrealistically high valuations are keeping the merger-and-acquisition market from picking up, experts say. "There is a lot of potential activity, but we are still seeing unrealistic valuations," says Thomas Ackerman, CFO of Charles River Laboratories.